Thea 2: The Shattering

Games
1

An early look at some pre-alpha game footage.

Video

A rather interesting little sequence where you need some information desperately, and since one of the party members is a pretty woman, you can trade sex for information. Hmmm, striving for controversy, perhaps? Especially when the encounter turns to bestiality.

Quite different from the original. You do not start with a town, and, in fact, you can apparently choose to remain a nomad or to settle multiple towns.

The battle/challenge system is substantially changed, although I have not wrapped my head around it yet.

They have fundamentally re-worked the non-combat challenges, which in my view is a very good thing. In the original, these non-combat options were both much easier than combat, while also being unnecessarily complex to prepare for – a combination of conditions which led to a “don’t bother thinking it through, I have lots of trinkets, they’ll do good stuff, and I’ll win.”

It is clear that the quality of your crafting has continued to expand in importance.

The “tech tree” is somewhat revised, although not fundamentally changed.

This is #2 on my list of most anticipated upcoming games. But I do hope that this is not morphing from a free form game with a few crucial encounters/conversations that are standardized… into a game where these sorts of set pieces are front and center, allowing for artwork and high quality, but not so great for long replay.

2

I’m glad the machines have learned how to suggest things I will be interested in as I’d completely forgotten about Thea 2 until it popped up in suggested topics. I rather enjoyed 1 so I’m looking forward to the sequel.

Thanks for posting, now I’ll be able to keep track of this.

3

Thanks for sharing this. I didn’t back this on kickstarter but I will be keeping an eye on it as itbcomes along.

4

I backed Thea 2’s Kickstarter. I’ll be happy to report any early experiences I have when I get them.

5

Looking forward to it!

6

Coming out on Steam today (Early Access).

7

So no one has bitten on this or has anything to share?

8

NDA is still up on the visuals I think. I need more time with it to form a fully opinon. There have been a lot, a lot of updates thus far.

Since I am playing exclusively MP, I am also waiting to see what they will address and what is intentional. There will be more soonish I think.

I will say their hotfixes/updates have been very good thus far. And I might be confusing thee NDAs. I am in a few that have them. I need like one place to go to see which NDAs I am still under!

9

I bought it and played the tutorials (only for the new combat system, alas). It’s considerably different, but certainly interesting. I’ll try the campaign later this week and let you know. ;)

10

It’s now publicly available, so I cannot imagine an NDA still applies as to that public version.

11

I played a little bit the other day and got the impression it has a lot to offer, but that it is very Early Release. So I am going to keep playing Deity Empires until the game settles in a bit.

12

Oh your’e right. This is the one they asked us not to say anything until the Friday it went EA. Its the other one I am not supposed to talk about.

Well then stay tuned when I have more time for the MP side of things, which is functional but has some issue. I’ve played a number of hours but they keep fixing things so it’s hard to pinpoint an improving experience.

13

So I thought I would do a tiny review.

Thea is probably my sisters top on the newer side game. I take full credit introducing it to her, and while we don’t really play “roguelike” now, when MP was introduced to the original Thea there was no other way to play due to some MP only bugs. Why am I mentioning this, well mostly to state that I am limiting myself to play Thea 2 only in MP until it releases so we can mostly experience it together and I don’t jump so far ahead there is nothing new to experience on full release.

I’ll just touch on some the biggest changes with No. 2 and then give my overall impression so far, and so far is important because they release patches so quickly we rarely get very far before we start over to get the new updates.

Gods

New ones! I won’t spoil the story but there is not only a new cast of gods, which you have a limited selection of first and have to open up like before, but you have a say in what sort of god based bonuses you start with. This can range form starting with a specific character class, getting more equipment or food and also bonuses. You can also open up new bonuses later with God Points. For MP, you can actually chose two different gods (before it was whatever the Host wanted). And you have a chosen one, an important person. We’ve not made it far enough in the story to figure out what that’s all about.

Children

Yes. They’re not just dead wait inventory items anymore. They’re food eating half-ass members before. This makes them a quasi challenge but also a boon because you’ll get more people when they grow up. My sister often chooses extra children (I think you get two) over an extra specific class in the hopes she will be ahead when the second one finally matures. There are also several events that make your perfectly ordinary boring children change or mature into something that’s just not human.

Pets

They’re pretty cool. I’ve seen boars, dogs and cats so far. the Boar join you in battle, can do a little damage but they really do well as damage shields so far, targets. The cat gave some nice bonuses to nice-combat stuff too.

Combat

If anyone felt the combat before was too simple or boring you might appreciate the grid layout, more control but less certain approach that this offers. It took a lot of getting used to, but I am getting the hang of it. In MP, we’re experimenting, but it seems like if you’re close enough or on certain quests, you can join your coop buddies in challenges. It’s not just a as many as you can get affair either. There’s a limit due to action points but it does allow each person to pick their best or person most likely to survive to help out.

Villages

You don’t start with one. I spend a fair amount getting resources to make one but you don’t have to. You can craft in camps, moving about as nomads. I have no idea which is the best approach, yet, but I am usually last to lay claim to a site. My sister beelines for it and we both have boons and struggles regardless

Biomes

They just introduced lairs so I am not sure if the difficulty is there yet but the idea is the Biomes are less random and more focused with specific ones more dangerous. I do tend to find bones, for example, in areas that look like dead forests to me and some nasty things in there too.

Factions

Friendly and no so friendly places, other settlements / groups. I’ve taken on quests for them but not entirely sure how this pans out yet. They’re pretty easy to see though.

There is a learning curve with the combat, like I said. Figuring out the crafting, like which combos work best with which skills is interesting and is not as straight forward but the general idea is the same.

It’s Thea, Thea with more but not just a carbon copy. They’re trying, mostly succeeding, and you can tell. They also see to be listening to requests. It’s a little hard to tell what they had planned and implemented later and what they are doing based on feedback but since they have in game ways to report story, suggestions and i think bugs in general it tells me they’re at least open to hearing from the players.

I’ve played EA games in worse shape. I generally don’t do them, but I like Thea. I wanted to see what they could do with 2, and the only real source of annoyances aside from some bugs and a few performance issues is that need to restart with their updates. They don’t force the restart, but there is risk of bugs if you don’t.

14

Thanks! I’ve been delaying getting into this, but I sure am curious. I have done a few battles, but I do not yet understand the strategy. I had not run across pets yet, so that is something to look forward to,

15

So far scavengers and scoundrels seem to come with pets, but I am not 100% sure if it’s jut the class or also the god combo. Those pets are the only way I am surviving some of the real tough bees early on. Someone else might start with a dog, but I’ve been on the god with boars for that last few updates.

16

Thanks a lot for the impressions Nesrie. This is looking promising. I picked up the first one after reading your impressions of it and I have to say that it’s on of my favorite games of the last few years. Please keep us posted as the game evolves through early access.

17

Oh you triggered my memory just now too. Not sure why but…

Auto-Resolve.

At the moment when you hit Auto-Resolve it will give you a basic overview of the outcome like win with some injuries, win with major injuries, win with death that sort of thing. At that point you can choose to accept the results or you can choose manual.

I am going to assume it’s the same for SP but let me tell you this can save a lot of time in MP games. MP battles are a bit of a slog at the moment. You can’t see them, unless it’s yours of course and they take longer than the original game because there is more complexity, depth but not being penalized for auto-resolving them is a real bonus.

In Thea 1 i never auto-resolved battles with boars. There was something about that calculation that almost always resulted in bloodied members. When I did battle myself, that was often not the case. They were tough, not something to take lightly but man would I get screwed with that.

Of course for those who just don’t want to play the combat at all this is a nice option too. I play most battles for practice. The weapons, the skills, the monsters are all lessons in progress.

We never auto resolve any battle or challenge that is a joined effort. I am not sure that’s a choice. I’ll have to pay attention next go around.

18

Thanks for the review Nesrie. I loved Thea and looking forward to 2, but I’m refraining from playing until release.

19

Finally sat down to an extended session of this yesterday.

This Steam guide made a big difference for me: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1580171256

I tried the nature god, and moved around as a nomadic group, getting my original people up to level 5. I feel like I understand the battles and something of the strategy. Found myself getting attached to the characters. There seem to be three types of battles (down from 5 or 6 as I remember in Thea 1) and I think it is a little more clear than in 1 what characters and items offer in terms of the mind and spirit battles.

I have not gotten used to the movement mechanism. Click on the tile, not the group icon, to open the radial menu. Choose movement. Move a tile or two and look around at what has been revealed. Start over clicking on the tile, open the radial menu, choose movement, move. Very clicky and kind of fussy. Similarly, I was not crazy about the inability to zoom out and get a sense of the overall map.

I do not yet have a handle on the advantages/disadvantages of creating a settlement. You can craft as you camp, so I did not feel any great need for a town. But maybe the buildings are very powerful, but a town means splitting the group, and from what I saw, you have a very small group.

And the smallness of the group is made more acute by the fact that you cannot select items for an encounter based upon whether it is a physical, mental, or spiritual challenge. (You can change items, but say you enter a town and get a choice whether to do a mental or physical challenge. By the time you see the choice, you can no longer open inventory.) Thus, in a group of 4 or 5, it seemed normal to only have 1-2 characters reasonably suited to the type of challenge.

One thing that appeared to be changed in a significant way: Significant hit point loss in Thea 1 meant wounds, and those could be fatal, especially if you did not do things to mitigate the problem. In 2, I see nothing like that. A character losing hit points in battle simply starts with fewer hit points if he/she fights again the next turn or two. This subtly changes the importance of shielding, because losing a few more hit points than your shielding no longer risks dire consequences. (Less realistic, but more in line with computer game norms.)

One other thing, unlike Nesrie, I found the auto-resolving of battles disastrous. Over and over, auto-resolve not only resulted in significant injuries, although I was able to win them easily without a scratch… but the auto-resolve injuries were to characters who obviously did not belong in the battle to begin with. Didn’t seem right at all.

All in all, I found the game fun, but not quite compelling at this point. I can’t explain why, but I did not feel a strong urge to keep going. But of course, it is EA and more content is on the way, and some of the little annoyances may well be taken care of.

20

You don’t have to use the radial unless you want to. I don’t. I think i just click the group and then right click. I can see where I am going too so maybe I hold it. I’ll pay more attention the next play through but 100% I am not using the radial in most cases.

The buildings make a big difference. For challenges you only get 7 people. If you have more than 7 it randomly, yes randomly, picks from the 7+ you have and gives you 7 which can really suck if you have the best person for the challenge not chosen. You can also just split the group but town helps and you get a little house demon too that hangs at town that is not a bad at all for most challenges (you cannot take him with you).

If you get a character low enough you’ll see a heart icon at the bottom middle of the screen. That character has a pretty good chance of dying or triggering a wound event. If you have a healer or you’re in town with a herbalist, you have a better chance at keeping them alive. I’ve had people die and live at low or zero hp so there is some element of chance in there.

I only do it for the far right too, the light or no injuries. I do a lot of manual at the moment so it’s mostly for for sure wins not the middle or maybe ones.

I think they have too much info hidden and it feels a lot more aimless than before. I think they’re tighten that up, and the push for villages, as in making them as a valid option, will probably come. Until 2-3 patches ago we didn’t even have recipes for food. It was a single recipe and you got maybe 4 choices of food types to use in it, now you can open it up.